The present invention relates generally to devices for use in vascular treatments. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices used in vascular treatments that provide signals to diagnostic equipment.
Vascular stents are known medical devices used in various vascular treatments of patients. Stents commonly include a tubular member that is moveable from a collapsed, low profile, delivery configuration to an expanded, deployed configuration. In the expanded configuration, an outer periphery of the stent frictionally engages an inner periphery of a lumen. The deployed stent then maintains the lumen such that it is substantially unoccluded and flow therethrough is substantially unrestricted.
Some percentage of stents that are implanted suffer from luminal loss due to thrombosis, encrustation, or neointimal hyperplasia restenosis. If the patient develops symptoms associated with these situations, diagnostic procedures will be used to determine if the stented lumen is adequately functional, if another disease condition has presented itself, or if the stented lumen has become inadequately functional. The diagnostic procedures may include initial non-invasive techniques such as radiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and/or measurement of chemistry, temperature, pressure and other parameters. Additionally, the diagnosis may include minimally invasive procedures such as angiography. However, angiography procedures can disrupt a patient's recovery and can be uncomfortable and painful to endure. Even so, the diagnostic procedures may be inaccurate, imprecise, and inconclusive as to determining the accurate functionally of the implanted stent.